A New Day's Blush
by little dark starling
Summary: "Words fail me. But then again, they always have when it comes to my feelings for Lisbon. When there can be no words, I dare myself to consider, can I bring myself to act?" Post-ep 6.17 but heading off-track. COMPLETE.
1. A beginning

**AN: Just joining in the host of fics out there clamoring for Jane and Lisbon to get it together already :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist, nor do I make any money from these stories.**

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The weakening Texas sun is on its way down in an otherwise clear sky, but a dry wind is still blowing the dust and leaves into miniature whirlwinds, sending them dancing and spinning across the deserted FBI parking lot. It is not a wholly barren landscape, however, as the red-bud trees dotted around the lot are still smothered in their blushing purple-pink flowers, and the bluebonnets in the surrounding gardens are in full bloom. The effect is…pleasant. And depressing. The sun sinks further toward the horizon and its dwindling rays are now filtered through the glossy dark green foliage of the red-bud planted nearest to where I have parked my trailer. I blink my eyes in the dappled green light and contemplate the staid fragility of those delicate florets, and the corresponding nature of the situation in which I now find myself.

April really is the cruellest month.

This train of thought causes me to scoff inwardly a little at my own melancholy. It's somewhat new to me: depression, no, but this cruel and constant ache of unhappiness accompanied by a stunted sense of inaction. When I lost Angela and Charlotte (lost, God what a euphemism!), the pain was sharp and agonising and it drove me along that torturous road of revenge. Now, the ache is dull and slow, a constant squeeze that threatens to cut off the blood supply to my chest. Seeing Lisbon, Teresa, every day has become an exercise in torture: a torment to which I have nevertheless become inexorably addicted, unable to change, unable to adapt.

I know that she too is finding it difficult. Our interactions have become awkward, jarring; no longer do we banter freely, exchange knowing witticisms back and forth between us, disguise mild flirting behind feigned frustrations. Now those frustrations are real, and it has reached a point where something must now be done about it before the whole unpleasant mess implodes.

"Jane?"

Uh oh. It looks like that something is going to be happening sooner rather than later. How did she manage to walk right up to me without my noticing? And in heels, too. She's been wearing them a lot lately, it seems. Part of the 'Marcus effect.' I can hear the sarcastic lilt to the comment even in my head. When those heels are accompanied by a skirt, as they are right now, they do something really quite amazing to her legs, and as much as I appreciate this, I am a man after all, an emerging part of me wishes that it occurred instead as a response to the 'Patrick effect.' That particular influence, on the other hand, seems to have no impact on her wardrobe and everything to do with that endearing little frown line she gets between her brows; the one that's right now adorning the face in front of me.

"Teresa. To what do I owe the pleasure? Aren't you supposed to be out for yet another scintillating dinner with the illustrious Agent Pike?'

She crosses her arms over her chest and widens her stance. It pulls her dress in all sorts of new and fascinating directions. "We have a case, Jane. Haven't you checked your phone? And can't you just call him Marcus? I'm getting tired of all the cutesy honorifics."

Cutesy? I wasn't being cutesy, I was being… jealous, belligerent, incorrigible? Probably some combination of the above. But that's not the point. And how did we get to a place where that could even be mistaken for the point?

"My phone's in the trailer. I was just sitting out here, enjoying this delightful spring evening. Join me?" I pat the step beside me.

"Didn't you hear me? I said we have a case." But she sits down anyway, careful to keep a little distance between our bodies. This tiny action brings forth another painful squeeze in my chest and I adjust my own body until our legs and arms touch. She stiffens, but to my intense relief doesn't pull away. We sit there in silence for a long moment, just watching the setting of the sun. At least, she's watching the sunset. I'm watching the way in which the fading light brings out the subtle copper highlights in her hair, tiny dancing fireflies glistening in a glossy darkness. I take sad solace in the little details such as this that I can now allow myself to take note of, to linger in. The old Jane could never have let himself contemplate at any length the deep beauty of that hue, the way the soft raven waves fall against her cheek, the trembling flutter of her eyelashes as they rest for that brief instant on the gentle rise of her cheekbone every time she blinks. I think of a moth's delicate legs quivering on the smooth silk of a blushing petal. If only…

If only what? If only I could speak up? If only I could speak the words that fit with these tiny precious moments? If only I could tell her how I…

Words fail me. But then again, they always have when it comes to my feelings for Lisbon. When there can be no words, I dare myself to consider, can I bring myself to act?

I raise one tentative hand and bring it slowly, gradually, towards her, towards that one lock of dark hair gracing the side of the face. I sweep the strands gently back, a single finger brushing against the smooth shell-pink curve of her tiny ear. She turns to look at me. The frown line is there, deepening, and I have the inexplicable urge to kiss it away. The expression in her eyes is one of reproach, mingled with confusion and sadness.

I move my hand from her ear, down the arc of her face to her chin, and around, until it cups her distant cheek, turning her face towards mine. My thumb smoothes the soft down and I marvel at her stillness, a statue beside me were it not for the warmth I feel spreading beneath my fingers and the gently throbbing pulse point in her neck. My thumb continues to sweep across her cheek until it comes to rest for one still moment at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes close, her chest rises and falls with shaky breath. My own heart beating faster, I trace the fullness of her lower lip, reveling in its tantalizing softness, and my mouth is drawn down to find hers.

A phone's sudden ring blasts through the quiet.

My mind is blank for a moment as she springs away from me like a racehorse at the gate, fumbling in her bag to locate the intruding device.

"Lisbon." A brief pause as she adjusts her hair, smoothing it back from her face, before running her hand down her body to rest, agitated, at her hip. "Yeah, Boss, I know. I'm with him now. We're on our way."

She ends the call and stands there a moment, looking at me. I want to say something, anything that will seal this moment, keep it safe until the time comes when we can return to it, but for some reason I can't read the expression on her face and this distresses me. I stand up and move towards her, but she takes a step back and returns the phone to her bag. Her expression is now familiar, that serious mask she conjures up in an always futile attempt to hide emotion.

"Teresa—"

She dismisses me. "We have to go, Jane."


	2. These uncertain shades of morning

**AN: Thanks so much for the favs and follows for the first chapter, and to MleeWrite, Hayseed Socrates, shallowdweller, Guest, AlliBeth, and KrrdmN for being my first reviewers. I'm glad you enjoyed the start of my story and I hope this second chapter lives up to your expectations. I'm posting it early because of all that extra Easter time :)**

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It has been two days since Teresa sat down beside me on the humble steps of my trailer; two days since I almost kissed her in the light of a sun struggling to prevent its last rays from sinking below a scorched horizon. And akin to those of that doomed sun my efforts since have proved equally futile. Two days, and things between us have progressed from bad to pretty damn awful. No longer does she simply tolerate me around the office and out in the field, friendly but in a forced offhand professional manner, conversation meted out as a matter of course to stave off the awkward silence. No, now that I have made my first move, she seeks actively to avoid me when she can. Just this morning, to provide one example, as I was standing nonchalant, _not lurking_, by the coffee cart near the main entrance, I witnessed her employ evasive manoeuvres and duck up the side steps to the lobby. And, for a second (if you're not yet convinced), whenever we're working (I use the word, you understand, in its broadest possible sense) in the bullpen, she is careful to ensure that there are always other agents employed nearby. At the odd moments when the surrounding desks are empty, she always finds an excuse to also leave the room. Of course, I could devise an elaborate plan to catch her alone in the break room on one of her frequent coffee ventures, or as she exits the ladies' restroom on the basement level of the building, her newly-found site of refuge where she is certain she won't run into me, but I find myself disinclined to do so.

I bragged once to Rigsby and Cho that I could seduce any woman, and, don't get me wrong, I stand by that claim. But I find myself unwilling to simply _seduce_ Teresa. I could do so in any number of inventive ways to which I am certain she would succumb, as her response the other night proved, but what I want from her is so much more than a mere yielding to desire. I know that she loves me, has done for years, but it is an unwilling and guilty love from which she is now attempting to hide; I monopolized for so long her inherent instincts of protection and charity, already so impeccably honed by all those years of caring for an ungrateful alcoholic father, that I fear that she cannot now dislodge this broken image of me far enough to love me as…a man. A whole man, one she can depend on as well as wish to sustain. I have used words to assure her time and again over the years that I will always be there for her, but in my actions… Well, let's just say I wholly deserve the wall she is now attempting to erect between us.

I find myself watching her now, from my usual position reclining on the couch, as she briefs the team on Dr Linus Wagner, that delightfully homicidal shrink whose escape from prison so cannily disrupted our sunset liaison. Teresa shines in the spotlight, all eyes focused on her, all ears inclined; this shift to the FBI has so far operated only to deny her such a leading role, relegating her instead to one of subordinate, and she is clearly capable of so much more. I observe Abbot, too, thinking along these lines, listening to her with calculating features, weighing up her efficacy and the way she holds her audience captive. I did a good thing then, in brokering that deal. She may still think that I did it all for me, but this, _this_ is what she deserves.

And as she speaks I find myself looking at her and really seeing _her_ as if it is for the very first time, not as an assembly of tiny perfect minutiae, but all of a piece, solid and particular and incredible. But, no, not incredible. That's really it. She is merely there, an embodiment of herself, no longer a catena of lovely parts, but pure and untainted and whole. I notice the little line of freckles dotted just above her left collarbone, the delicate indentation marring the smooth skin above her upper lip, a speck of stray mascara in the corner of her eye. Enigmatic is she no more, but instead a woman, just a woman. And somehow by being in this moment simply herself, without pretence or adornment, she makes those around her be present in this way too. In her, and in the way she speaks (I can't pretend to be paying any real attention to the _content_ of what she is saying; besides, I know it all already), the room, the little world of this FBI bullpen in which we sit, settles in its foundation and is fully realized. It is as if she has dropped a condensed drop of dye into the colorless water that is the world and the color has spread and the outline of things is suddenly so much more present. As I sit with my mouth agape and watch her, I feel everyone and everything fall into their most vivid form, shivering and shifting and detaching themselves from me and how I might perceive them, changing instead into what they really are, no longer mysteries to be solved, puzzles to be deciphered, marks to be read; no longer a part of me at all. I am no longer even here in this moment, I…

"Jane?"

Okay, so maybe I am here after all. At least, _they_ are very much aware of me. They being the entire FBI task force. Who are all staring at me, expectant.

The exception is of course Teresa, who is glaring.

"Mmm," I say, closing my mouth with a snap and nodding in what I know to be a knowledgeable fashion , carefully avoiding her narrowed gaze. Confidence is everything when convincing others that you are completely in control and know exactly what you are doing. "A good point, Lisbon. It's like I always say, you can't trust a psychiatrist. Dodgy people. Abbot?"

I throw the ball of conversation on to the senior agent, who frowns at me, but, as I knew he would, catches it and buys me some time.

"I also think it's a good plan. Jane, you're with Lisbon on this. The two of you are going back to California. Try and get us something from the cellmate Wagner had prior to solitary confinement. Fischer, you and Cho can follow the money trail. Start with his accountant, this Watson."

He continues assigning tasks to the rest of the squad, while I turn my attention elsewhere to more important things. Teresa is packing up her notes at the front of the room, still frowning, teeth tugging at her lip in that familiar way that tells me she's extremely irritated. She's going to need coffee before we leave, I think, and rouse myself to fetch it for her. It won't go terribly far toward making this upcoming trip less uncomfortable for her, but…

Wait a minute, we're going back to California?

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The vehicle's movement is smooth and powerful, no rattling or shaking or sudden lurchings to the left, as I used to enjoy when squiring Teresa around Sacramento and its surrounds in my old blue Citroen. She wouldn't travel in it very often, but those times when she did are amongst my fondest memories of life at the CBI. Travelling in "the old rust bucket" as she so fondly christened it, always felt somehow like flying, and not the jet-plane kind of flying either. It was as if the very tenuousness of its wheels' grip on the road transformed its precariousness into that of something like an ancient Tiger Moth, open both to the air and to my daring.

The tank we now find ourselves in refuses to register even the most prominent of bumps and grooves in the road. We float along as if skimming inches above the highway, jetting our way west from Blythe Airport to Ironwood State Prison, but every time Teresa's foot hits the accelerator there is a satisfying roar and I feel the pull and vibration of the engine right through my spine. I love to travel like this; it is one of my undisclosed delights, although I suspect Lisbon has always had an inkling of this fact. It is not the speed, I don't think, or even the uterine snugness of my front seat that does it for me, but the circumstance of being all-around enclosed in glass. I believe the windscreen to be one of the most joyful developments in human technological advancement, and our current tinted surround is no exception. The passing world without seems somehow aqueous when observed through this molded arc of treated light, a phantasmal realm of scattering leaves and undulating shadows, where trees and power poles flash past, and the occasional letterbox appears frozen akimbo in the wake of our speed, a carnival clown from my childhood days, capable only of watching in passive acceptance, mouth wide, the flash of our passing.

If I were to believe, as I know Teresa does, in the possibility of anything existing beyond this, our present life - and, that being the case, were there anything other than eternal and unremitting suffering and torture in store for such an accomplished sinner as I – then this is how I see myself arriving at that blue heaven, resting as I now am, arms folded across my chest, in a sort of contented bewilderment, with Teresa in the seat beside me, both of us together at the soothing center of this humming transparent craft. Is this wrong? That my concept of peace has now shifted from an eternity with the beloved memory of my wife and child to exist in the living breathing person of this small woman beside me?

My musing on this somewhat troubling question is interrupted as Teresa pulls the vehicle off the highway and into the parking lot of a roadside diner. My stomach rumbles when it realizes that it hasn't seen nourishment since breakfast, five hours earlier. I am almost embarrassed by the protests of my mutinous organ; that is, until I spot the tiny smile attempting to break through my lovely companion's up until now stiffly-maintained exterior. It succeeds. Those twinkling emerald orbs are raised to meet mine for an extended precious moment and one side of her exquisite mouth curves up.

"Thought you might be in need of some eggs," she offers, her smile widening as she relaxes into the familiarity of this moment.

"You know me so well, my dear," I return, regretting the affectionate term almost instantly when the smile drops from her face.

"Yeah, well…," she peters out, unbuckling her seat-belt and getting out of the vehicle. The door slams.

"Teresa, wait." I too exit the car and skirt its bulk hurriedly in order to follow her across the lot. I am struck by the parallels our present progress shares with that of two nights ago. Then too she strode quickly away from me, heels clicking sharply on the asphalt, the hem of her dress swaying frantically about her knees. I moved in her wake; head adrift, heart in my hands. In this moment, she is dressed in boots and jeans, but the devastating effect on me is nonetheless the same.

She reaches the door and places one small hand on the handle to tug it open. I see a couple of old men, truck drivers probably, watching us through the window glass. They are dressed in almost identical checked shirts and baseball caps, twin chins bearded in wreathes of grey. I smile at them and nod.

Her hand still on the door handle, Teresa turns to me.

"Let's just go in and eat, Jane. We've got a long day of interviews ahead of us."

I smile my sad assent and follow her inside.

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**AN: Blythe and Ironwood State Prison are real places in California, but I've never been to either – I'm just making a lot of stuff up :) Leave a review if you like – they make me smile!**


	3. Blood moon

**AN: Thank you again for all your responses to the story so far. Some people have expressed concern that Lisbon is being a bit mean to Jane. But don't worry, she loves him really and will come around to showing it again very soon (see below) :)**

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The mellow four-noted hoot of a spotted owl draws me to the balcony doors of my bedroom. I open them wide and step out, still clad in the suit pants and shirt I put on this morning, albeit with said shirt's tails now untucked. The veranda onto which the doors open encircles the entirety of this small holiday lodge, the idyllic spot where Teresa and I now find ourselves so cozily ensconced. Well, I am feeling distinctly cozy here. We have followed Wagner's trail to this sylvan area, where it sits in the vicinity of the Cleveland National Forest, and where according to FBI sources his mother owned a cabin. On her death five years ago the title deeds passed to her younger sister, but his cellmate in Ironwood recalled Wagner's frequent mentions of it in relation to nostalgic childhood musings. With Abbot's apparently somewhat reluctant go-ahead, we headed across the bottom of California from Blythe to arrive here, at the picturesque Pinehaven Creek.

The first owl's lonely hoot is returned by another strigine voice, the notes once more smooth and rich in the otherwise still forest air. It has just gone half-past ten in the evening, and the forest nightlife is only now beginning to make itself known. An hour earlier, Teresa requested an early night, pleading the long hours spent driving as her excuse, and so I find myself once again alone, save for this pair of similarly nocturnal creatures, whose echoing calls are making me feel lonelier than ever. I move forward from the open doorway to walk across the veranda and lean my elbows on the wooden railing, looking up into the trees, searching amidst the tree bark and shadows, for a glimpse of the elusive creatures.

Nothing.

As is happening more and more often these days, I find myself thinking back to the first time I met Teresa. There we are, in the public corridor beside her tiny office nook, an almost laughable pretense of privacy in the hustle and bustle of the bullpen, she in her widened cop-stance, arms crossed in front of her chest in an attempt to mask the bewildered concern she was nevertheless clearly experiencing at the sight of my decrepit grief, and I standing meekly before her, also attempting (and succeeding, I'm sure) to keep my true motives to myself. I needed her to see me as such an object of pity, a miserable creature that would arouse those maternal instincts she repeatedly refuses to acknowledge in herself, so that she would feel compelled to keep me informed on my case.

Despite myself, however, and to my great surprise, another sensation came over me, an almost scalding flush, the source of which it took me a significant while to determine.

It was shame. And I mean real shame: the heat, the burn, the pure, searing scorch of it. Shame. Have you ever experienced it, that need to cringe and cower and wring yourself out as if you were filled to the brim with a blistering, bubbling, boiling liquid? Not everyone, I suppose, is given such an opportunity to know, to _really know_, that they are without a doubt a reprobate, a varlet, a no-good transgressor. And it takes more than you might think to admit to yourself that it is indeed an apt identification, to recognize in it your true self. But that was my stunning realization in the face of Teresa Lisbon, as if her inherent goodness, her fairness, her charity, formed a great and powerful lamp that shone brightly and lit up all the corners and shadows of my dark soul. I wanted to abase myself at her feet, throw myself down before her with tears and execrations, wrap myself around her knees and beg forgiveness for my sins.

Of course I didn't.

I had thought myself prepared for her. I'd done my research, as I always did before meeting a mark, knew all about her stellar promotions through the ranks from beat cop to detective to senior agent, her reputation for thoroughness and integrity and strict adherence to the rules and regulations. It should have been a breeze, but… The reality was something else entirely, another level, another stratosphere. And it made my self-designated path over the next decade that much more difficult. There were so many moments during those years when I actually considered throwing in my quest for revenge, giving up and imploring Teresa to take me as I was, a broken man, to heal me with her virtue. But I would wrestle those feelings down deep within myself, suppress them beneath games and evasion and avoidance, frantic attempts to build and maintain distance between my increasingly loathed self and this added object of torment.

And of course there came a time, I'll admit it now, when my motivations in seeking out the man who killed my wife and child became based on something more than plain revenge for Angela and Charlotte. Perhaps the process was some sort of journey of redemption, or is that too trite? Standing here, looking out upon this Arden, it's somehow easy to wax lyrical. But something did nevertheless happen to make me see (unwillingly) my pursuit as a trial of some sort, a test of endurance, or worthiness; I was a knight, seeking revenge, yes, but seeking also a renewed worthiness of love. I wanted to be loved once more.

And a slow and certain transformation has most definitely occurred. The way I see it, over that long decade of self-imposed guilt, I evolved into a considerably more complex creature. This is certainly not to say that I now feel myself to be _better_ than I once was (that is not for me to decide, though if it does turn out to be true then I know whose influence it has been playing the unceasing wave wearing away at the rock of my long-ineradicable depravity). But it doesn't mean either that I am any worse. In fact I'm sure of that one. It's just that everything in and around me seems to have become more intricate, deeper and more intense. Does this mean I am worthy of love? I hope that this is so.

A slight noise behind me stirs me from my reverie, but I don't turn around. I know that it is Teresa, emerging from the room beside mine, to stand, doubtful, in the shadows of the doorway. She is now still and I have to fight the urge to turn and face her. The last few days have been difficult, to say the least, watching her visibly spar within herself, while at the same time never being entirely sure quite what the defining parameters of that internal battle really are. I've tried to give her space, as much as is possible in a journey such as this, two people trapped in a car for hours on end, in the hope that she will come to me when she is finally ready to confront what was sparked into being the other evening. Perhaps that time is now.

"Hey."

Her quiet voice breaks through the night and the relief exploding within me is so overwhelming that for an instant I feel nauseous. I sense her walk up beside me and turn my head to look at her as she too leans against the wooden rail. Her hair is loose and she is wearing a dark blue night-shirt. It hangs almost to her knees, and beneath it her bare legs and feet gleam pale in the moonlight. She looks beautiful.

"Lisbon," I greet her, dragging my gaze away from her lovely form and back to the peaceful forest vista. "Couldn't sleep?"

"No, I… it's too quiet." Her response doesn't surprise me. She's a city girl, through and through, this one. "And I was thinking. Jane…" She turns her whole body to face me and looks up. The expression on her face changes to something akin to wonder, and I have the audacity to surmise for a moment that it is I who am the cause of the transformation. But, no. She puts one small hand on my shoulder and lifts the other to point into the sky. "What is up with the moon?"

I can't help reaching my arm around her waist as I too turn and look up into the heavens. I have to lean into her even more to see beyond the slant of the roof, and this brings me into even closer proximity with her small body. She smells like jasmine. My eyes close and I breathe the scent in before I remember what it is I am meant to be doing this near to her.

"Come," she says, taking my hand and stepping away. "We might get a better view from down there."

She leads me across the verandah at a run, and I can't help but swing her hand as we skip like children down the steps and across the small lawn to stand in front of the lodge. We are both smiling and a little breathless when we reach it, and I take a moment to scrunch my bare toes into the soft grass beneath my feet. I don't relinquish her hand and we look up together, our view of the night sky now unimpeded.

There are no clouds and the moon is full. It also appears to have a reddish veil drawn over its surface. A blood moon.

"It's an eclipse," I say, scanning my memory for what I can recall about them. "The moon is passing directly through our shadow, and the dispersal of light from the sun gives it that coppery color." For some reason I refrain from describing it as a blood moon. The term has distinctly creepy connotations, even for me.

Nevertheless, Teresa shivers and her hand tightens in mine. I look down at her and feel such affection for this tiny woman who has stuck beside me through so much more than anyone should ever have to put up with in one lifetime.

"It's creepy," she says, taking the words from my thoughts, and her mouth appears to pout, lips rose-pink in her pale face. "It looks like it's bleeding or something." She lets go of my hand and wraps her arms around herself. I feel the loss of her touch immediately and step closer, unwilling to relinquish this odd moment of intimacy that is taking place miles from anywhere in the southern wilds of California.

She notices my movement almost instantly and her face becomes guarded once more. In order to prevent her fleeing back to her room, which I sense is inevitable should I push the moment, I feign a distraction. I step past her and look up into the trees, at the foot of which we now stand. "Did you hear the owls earlier?" I ask. "I think there's a pair of them nesting in this tree. They're probably watching us right now."

There is a pause before she smacks my arm and laughs, a welcome sound in the too-silent chambers of my heart. "Stop it, Jane. Now you're just trying to creep me out, with the thought of giant killer birds spying on us from the trees, beneath a bloody moon." She laughs again and comes up beside me. I am grinning now too; I've missed this, laughing with Lisbon.

"I didn't say anything about them being giant or killers. Unless of course you're a mouse or a small vole of some description. Which, now that I think about it…" I pluck a strand of her hair from her shoulder and pretend to examine it closely.

She brushes my hand away, but remains close at my side. "Shut up. What the hell is a vole anyway?"

I chuckle and reach back to smooth the hair behind her ear. And then I can't help it. "Something beautiful."

She glares at me before something in her face changes and she could almost be about to cry. "Why are you doing this?" Her voice is a whisper, a single leaf listing in the breeze. "What do you want from me, Jane? Because I don't think I can bear it anymore."

At that moment, just as my heart feels like it could break at the pain and the loveliness in her eyes and in every tremble of her voice, a shot like an exploding firecracker rings out from the surrounding woods and something simultaneously slams into the trunk of the tree beside my head. Almost immediately I find myself hurled to the ground, hard, as Teresa throws her full weight at my chest. I lie there, winded, flat on my back, twigs and what I think must be a small rock digging into me painfully, terrified, but nevertheless obedient to her hurried hiss of "Stay down." Her body remains, a shield protecting mine, and we lie there and listen to the sounds of the forest around us.

After a while, and just as I am becoming distinctly aware of the uncomfortable pleasure now to be found, both in our position and in the mingled sounds of our breathing, she slides off to crouch, poised, kneeling by my side. She puts a finger to her lips and helps me ease myself up into a seated position and lean back against the nearest tree trunk. The one now housing a bullet. I rub my back painfully (yes, that was a rock), and close my eyes. I am getting too old for this.

A twig snaps somewhere not too distant from us and we both stiffen. Teresa's eyes are wide as she scans the trees and I know she must be feeling particularly vulnerable out here without her weapon. I somehow doubt even she can secret a gun on her person in that minimal outfit.

In confirmation of this suspicion, she leans in close to my ear and whispers, "I'm gonna have to make a run for it. My weapon's in my room, so… Just stay here and stay quiet, Jane. I'll be right back."

I'm close to panicking now at the thought of letting her go, of being left alone out here in the dark, while she runs out and across that open space unarmed. I reach out and touch her face and silently damn the universe for putting us here, now, like this. Smiling at me through the gloom, she presses her fingers to the hand still resting on her cheek. Then she leans forward, traces a gentle kiss on my lips, and is off and running.

Another shot rings out in the night.

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**AN: Oh dear. Let me know what you think :)**


	4. Pale shadows

**AN: Thanks again for all the support with reviews and follows. I really appreciate the encouragement :) On with the next chapter…**

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I constantly find myself intrigued by the ways in which the things that happen happen. And I'm not talking simply about the unusual or the tragic or the absurd; no, it's those small everyday occurrences that keep on accumulating, one on top of another, until, voila, one arrives finally at the full-screen capture of one's life. Sometimes I find myself taking a step back; looking down on what has led to me being me, somehow just floating above it all. But, then again, floating is not perhaps the right word for it, because really there is nothing gentle or lilting about my contemplation of life's events; in fact, you could say I'm in a nose dive, plummeting head first toward…well, back to reality, to the hard rock of inevitability, and landing with a resounding crash. It happens time and time again.

I remember when I was living alone on the island, the lack of distraction meaning daily confrontation with what I had done and what I had become, and I would write to Teresa, long letters detailing the scenery and the characters and the daily trivial incidents I thought she would enjoy. What lay beneath the humdrum, and what would often come out unbidden as I was signing off these missals, was of course the fact that I missed her and that I wished she was there. Her absence was the one thing making it impossible for me to move on in any meaningful way, made my new life continue to be strange and sad, as if a piece of me had been wrenched out or off and could not grow back. Part of me wished, painfully, that she would somehow track me down, piece together the clues I left her, and come after me. But the larger part knew she wouldn't. So one could most definitely say I was relieved when the FBI finally found me and offered me that deal. Clever of them to send in a lookalike in Kim, make me really remember what it was I had left behind, what it was I was now missing out on. So what was five years after all if it meant seeing, being with, Teresa again? I had spent twice that long in pursuit of Red John.

But not in all those two years away from her had it ever really occurred to me to be jealous of potential happenings in _her_ life. Oh, I knew that there was a definite risk that I would lose her, yet distance allowed me to somehow manage to keep my idea of her safe, selfishly manacled to the pillar of my absence like one of those enchanted, long-haired maidens in a Millais painting, the Martyr of the Solway perhaps. I'd done it before, after all. But this now certainty of her cavorting with the stolid and respectable Agent Pike, so unlike the hard-faced cowboys, who in the good old days were always hanging around her, walloped me with the force of a shock to the heart. That first evening when I saw them leave the office together, and knew that their relationship was about to take that step forward, I sat on my couch aghast, my whole body unusually warm, flushing I'm sure with the pain of it all, and saw the whole thing as it was bound to play out. And no matter how hard I try to force it from my mind, it returns to my vision over and over.

They are in the bedroom of Pike's modern bachelor apartment, situated on the upper levels of one of those newly established blocks in midtown. The wide windows look out onto the well-lit city streets, where earlier in the evening they strolled hand in hand, stopping before shop windows to whisper and laugh softly into each other's ear. Now the soft glow from the lights outside falls through the room, softly illuminating the artwork on the walls, the large immaculately made bed, Teresa's pale skin. She looks about her in something like surprise and almost amusement to find herself here: what had seemed accidental was really something wanted, after all, and so here she is, on this otherwise anonymous Thursday evening, in this strange but soon to be familiar room, in this city, miles away from where she once believed her life would lead. He stands almost awkwardly, not looking at her, somewhat nervous now despite all his earlier ease and confidence, and removes things from his pockets in an ordered fashion: keys, wallet, small change are all lined up on the bureau, meticulous. His cheek is flushed, and that endearing touch of color makes her throat tighten. He turns to her now, speaking lightly to mask his awkwardness, then stops to stare at her powerlessly. She sees the apple in his neck bob as he swallows. They are still a moment, poised, listening inside themselves to that secret inner hum as it gradually swells to a crescendo. Then a hand is raised, soft skin touched, an inward breath taken.

This is what trembles my heart, the thought of this silent moment of surrender. Of course what will follow is dreadful too – there are no bounds to this imagination of mine, believe me – but it is right here, when his fingers feather over her cheek and her lips part and her eyes darken, that I find my mind caught on, as cloth is snagged by a piece of jagged glass.

Yet I know too that there is a perverse part of me that revels in its happening, wants to have been there and to have leant over them with eyes burning to feast in lamentation on their entwined forms and drink deep of their passion. What terrible desire is this in me? Am I a vampire, a demon, at their joining, feeding on their fervor to give myself life? That shadow Pike is more vivid, more real, than I feel my own self to be at moments. I am so often trapped here within my own imaginings, forced to live over the torture of such visions.

Why am I thinking of this now, I wonder? Quite possibly it is because Marcus Pike himself has arrived before me in the flesh, and is now standing a couple of meters away, speaking anxiously to a group of other, equally serious, agents, all dressed alike in their dark stiff-looking suits. I know that Abbott, Fischer, and Cho are somewhere around the place too, but for the moment everyone seems to be leaving me alone, too busy securing the scene, looking for clues, drawing up their plans of action. I've already told them all I can about what happened.

_The second gunshot rang out, and in the same instant my heart leapt into my throat, I saw Teresa fall. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, and I heard as if from a great distance my own voice release an anguished cry, but in that same split second she somehow tucked her shoulder under her body and managed to roll. Then she was on her feet again and dashing up the steps to the lodge. The last I saw of her was her slim figure, sylph-like, slipping back through the open door and into her room. _

_I had been so relieved to think that she'd made it, that she wasn't lying there dead and crumpled in a broken heap on the moonlit grass before me, and that I didn't have to go through the agony of such desperate loss all over again, that I almost didn't register the third shot, which was followed immediately by a scream that could have been my name but was quickly cut short. That scream sliced through my chest more sharply than any blade, and I was pushing up from the ground and heading towards it without giving the slightest thought to the threat still behind me in those trees. I didn't feel the bullet hit my arm, only caught myself stumbling and knocking my knees painfully on the wooden stairs leading back up to where I had last seen her. By the time I managed to clear them and limp my way to her room, it was empty, save for one dark stain smeared across the wall near the door, a starkly indignant mark against its bland white background._

As I return to the equally uncomfortable present, Cho makes an appearance in the doorway of the bedroom in which I am currently sitting, my own, slumped on the end of the bed, still shoeless and with my shirt and pants now ruined with blood and dirt, but with the added accessory of a bandage wrapped snugly around my upper arm. The bullet didn't lodge itself in me, so I have refused painkillers and a trip to the emergency room. I can't leave and I need my mind to be clear.

"Jane." Cho greets me, coming to sit beside me on the bed, and I see Pike look over at us at the sound of his voice, dark brows furrowed. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, you know," I say, and shrug my shoulders. "Got a bullet in my arm and my partner's been abducted by a vindictive shrink. I guess I could be better."

"You don't have a bullet in your arm, it's just a graze. And we're going to get her back, Jane." Cho's face is impassive but his solid and familiar presence beside me is nevertheless comforting. If I can rely on anyone (other than Teresa, that is) it's Kimball Cho. "You still sure it was Wagner who took her?"

I look at him. Am I sure? Maybe I take back that earlier thought. "Of course. I'm just not entirely certain why."

"Well I am." Kim sweeps into the room, phone in hand. "These photos were taken at Wagner's cabin." She hands the device to Cho, who flicks through them and then passes them on to me. I look at the first and my jaw almost drops. It's of a room, no windows that I can see from the angle of the photo, but the one section of wall in view is covered in pictures. Of Teresa. As far as I can tell, they're not all recent ones either. In fact, looking closer, I can see at least five from my early years in Sacramento. Wait a moment, that one…

"What is it, Jane?" Pike's voice startles me and I look up. I didn't hear him enter the room and yet here he is, suddenly standing over me with that irritating concerned look on his face. For some reason I feel irked. "Bloody hell." He's seen the screen. "Are those all of Teresa?" He moves to take the phone from me, but I jerk it out of his reach.

"Cho, take a look at this. What do you notice about that picture? That one, in front of the lake?"

Cho uses the zoom function to close in on the photo's detail. He's silent for a long while, before finally: "Rigsby's still got that pathetic attempt at facial hair." He looks at me, the slightest frown of puzzlement on his otherwise blank face. I am impressed. Rigsby is in the background of the shot, after all.

"Yeah? So?" Pike finally manages to snatch the phone to look at the picture himself. "What does an old colleague's beard have to do with finding out what's happened to Teresa?"

Kim is also looking at me in mild confusion, but at least she can wait patiently for one of us to speak.

"We-ell," I begin, simultaneously attempting to process the meaning of this new development, whilst also addressing the question in a civil manner. I accidentally rub my hand over the bandage on my arm and can't help but wince. "That photo was taken before we ever knew Wagner. Long before. Six months, in fact."

"You can tell that?" Fischer sounds impressed. I'm almost hurt. We've been working together for almost a year, after all.

"Well, that day was pretty memorable." I smile, a little grimly, perhaps, thinking back with a mixture of fondness and gravity to the events that took place.

Cho chuckles. "That's right. Thanks to you, the boss ended up in that lake, and, if I recall correctly, had to take a week off work. She was pissed." He puts a hand on my shoulder, the good one, and pats it. I don't usually appreciate being touched, but I'm once again comforted by Cho's presence. I try to dislodge the painful lump in my chest.

"Not that it's the point, but I don't think it was a whole week. Maybe a couple of days." I'm clinging to the small details here, because I'm having trouble computing the larger ones. Something about this doesn't make sense.

Of course. I look up to meet three sets of worried eyes and realize I've been chewing my lip. I release it. "Who took these photos?" I say the words slowly, carefully. "It can't have been Linus Wagner, at least not for any of the later ones. He's been in prison that whole time."

"And yet it's got to be someone connected with him, since we found all this at his mother's cabin. Crime scene techs will be able to tell us how long they've been there. They were just getting started when I spoke to Agent Simpson and got these." For some reason I can't quite yet determine, Kim seems suddenly agitated. "I'm going to go update Abbott. You should get yourself cleaned up, Jane."

She exits the room briskly, and Pike, after a couple of glances from Cho to myself, follows suit. I meet Cho's intense stare.

"What are you thinking?" Always suspicious that one, though I'm far from blaming him for it.

"I'm not sure," I reply, honestly. I need time to put the pieces together, because in this moment they just aren't lining up. "Kim's right. I should change." I stand up and cross to my suitcase, which is still standing, apparently untouched, by the dresser. Cho follows my movements with his usual impenetrable gaze, before rising himself and moving to the door.

"Right. Well, come find me when you're done." He too leaves the room, and I am once again alone with my thoughts.

There washes up and over me then that swelling wave of dislocation, an experience which has been overwhelming me with increasing frequency these days, and which frightens me. It is as if my mind and my body have somehow become disconnected from one another, or as if the absolute, essential center of what makes up my identity has withered down to the size of a dried pea, leaving the rest of me hanging in loose and baggy suspension, enormous but weightless, like an old sheet hung out to dry and then forgotten. I wonder vaguely if it is the result of some kind of malignant astrocytic glioma blooming deep within my brain or some such other devious cerebral malfunction. But I do not believe the consequence of it to be a physical one. Perhaps this is how I shall eventually completely lose it, finally fly apart into little pieces of Patrick Jane never to be reconciled again. The episode, or whatever you would like to call it, subsides as usual, with a sickening sensation of falling from a great height, as if I have been pushed from a plane, dropping out of myself even as I stand here, feet firmly on the floor, whole body rigid with fright. I look about me, somewhat dazed and blinking. The room is unchanged, everything around me untouched. But I recognize that deception the world occasionally cloaks itself in; nothing is innocent, and least of all myself.

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**AN: Hope you liked it. Let me know in a review - they make me smile :)**


	5. Lightning strikes

**AN: I'm not entirely happy with this chapter. I find dialogue exhausting, and this one is pretty heavy with it. But hopefully you will enjoy it all the same! I'd just like to say once more that I really appreciate the time you have taken in reading and especially in reviewing the story. Guest, Guest, LouiseKurylo, DaisyDay, Rosepeony, Jasmin, and aliceb (who reviewed four chapters in a row!), you guys are awesome! Thanks for your kind words on the last chapter :) Silent readers, I love you too :)**

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The lodge is at long last free of agents. Having processed both scenes, here and up at Wagner's cabin, the stalwart troops of the FBI have returned to their base in the San Diego offices. Those who made the journey from Texas have gone with them; I, however, have chosen to remain here. Cho looked at me with narrowed eyes when I stated this decision.

"_What if these guys come back Jane? You were shot at too, remember?"_

"_They're long gone, Cho. They were hired muscle, and now they've achieved their objective, they won't return here. They weren't after me." _

I know he feels some kind of responsibility towards me, now that Teresa is…absent. And of course I appreciate the sentiment. For this reason I did not make a fuss when he said that he would be returning this evening.

I look at the clock, a handsome hand-carved piece sitting squatly on the mantel above the open fireplace; its golden hands tell me that it has just gone five o'clock.

The kitchen of this place is a pleasant roomy domain, high-ceilinged and well-lit, with a large picture window looking out onto the northern expanse of California pines. At the moment it smells like several hefty and active men have just vacated it, but earlier, when Teresa and I first arrived, there was a very agreeable commingling scent of fresh baking and wild flowers. Our hosts, so far unseen, had been kind enough to leave a batch of new-made muffins on the countertop, which a Teresa, worn out with driving, had soon made a significant dent in along with breaking in the coffee machine. The basket is now empty and I assume the remainder of its contents was made short work of by the likes of a recently departed ravenous task force.

I decide to open some windows in an attempt to regain the fresh air. Now, in the newly welcomed breeze, large old-fashioned pieces of furniture carry out their no longer secret lives: a large rectangular wooden table, well-scrubbed from years of use, with low wooden benches positioned along and just under the long sides; an enormous sprawled couch, upholstered in red and gold with scarlet cushions tossed casually about its length; and in the corner a high roll-top writing desk, polished to a dark oaky gleam. An odd addition to a kitchen, I can't help but think, even such a large one as this, but impressive nonetheless. Despite the now open window, everything seems somehow stalled, held in position, as if in some long ago moment something had happened and the inhabitants had all dropped what they had been doing and simply rushed out to never return. Which in some ways, I guess, is exactly the case. The room seems to wait, swathed in stillness, ever poised to take up its life once more should they ever return; a stopped timepiece in limbo. I wait within it.

I have already decided on the perfect place in this room in which to sit and drink my cups of tea: one corner of the generous window seat, wedged in comfortably beside a tall bookcase, one shelf the ideal height upon which to rest a cup and saucer whilst turning a page. This bookcase also holds a flourishing miniature fern in a blue pot, and from where I sit I can see down to the patch of lawn, where I stood with Teresa that night, hands clasped, childlike, as we looked up at the red-veiled moon. To the left of this no longer lovely vista is a rosebush well into its dusky pinkish bloom, and I can just spot an old rusted wheelbarrow at the corner of the house.

The words enter my head, _I came back from my ruined self, the derelict house of my past. I came back and yet here I am once again, knocking at its door._ This thought, in some form or another, has become a familiar one to me over the last few months; why then, each time it presents itself, am I surprised anew?

Tea. My staple and my constant. Whenever I need to steady my thoughts, realign my senses, I can usually do so with the help of a good cup of tea. I tend to think of the taking of tea as an almost ceremonial pleasure, best achieved in solitary. (I quash deep down the memories of the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee beans blending and interspersing with the scent of Ceylon.) I usually prefer a superior black tea, Darjeeling or Lapsang Souchong, but I certainly won't go past a well-brewed herbal blend. And then of course there is the vessel from which this life-giving liquid is to be imbibed. Even the anonymous bag has the potential to taste half decent when served in, for example, a delicate piece of duck-egg-blue china. I love bone china, the very texture of it, the idea of it. I think of taking it up and cracking it delicately between my teeth, fine flakes lingering like meringue on my tongue and my lips.

Tea carries with it the flavor of other lives. As I sip from its amber depths, I can see behind closed lids the bent backs of those who pluck the leaves, moving across a hillside green with the low-clumping bushels; workers who package the product in bustling but cavernous warehouses, calling and shouting to each other as they load the enormous crates; the owners behind the counter of the boutique tea emporium, which I discovered not too far distant from the FBI offices in Houston, a delightful place where the calm and fragrant atmosphere soothes the unsettled breast and where one is not in the least impugned for one's choice of beverage. A throng of lives all brewed up together and distilled into a single cup of perfumed pleasure.

Stop, I tell myself sternly. Teresa is in trouble and all you can do is sit and drink tea and think about people who in this moment mean nothing at all.

I close my eyes and lean my head back against the cool glass of the window behind me. What is left of the day outside is darkening. A looming, lead-colored cloud, its edges burning like molten magnesium has just begun to rear its ugly head. A crackling stillness gathers in the heavy air; rain is on its way. I wonder for a moment what causes this, an almost expectant hush in the atmosphere around me; some shift in air pressure no doubt, but I've never been big on meteorology.

I hear footsteps, calm and measured, traverse the gravel path behind me and mount to the kitchen door. It opens with a slight creak.

"Cho," I say, not opening my eyes. "How goes it in San Diego?"

"Jane," comes the reply. "Have you moved at all today? You were sitting there when I left."

I open my eyes at this and blink a couple of times in his direction. "Ah, yes, in actual fact I have moved. I went for a stroll. It just so happens that this is an excellent place to sit and think."

"And what have you come up with, sitting and thinking?"

There's something tight about the way he is carrying his shoulders, I notice, some new tension. The result of new information? "You first. What fruits of knowledge have the steadfast FBI gathered today?"

"Wagner's cellmate at Ironwood hung himself last night. During a more comprehensive search of the cell this morning, they uncovered a hiding place, dug into the brick beneath the sink."

"More comprehensive? As in, they didn't really search it in the first place?" I guess. Why didn't Teresa and I ask to see the cell itself when we were there? Too late now. "What did they find?"

"One photo. Caught up on the side. Looks like there were more stored in there at some point, but they're gone now. We dated this one at two months ago."

I tap my thumb against my lip. It's a nervous habit that I try to turn casual. "So he was getting the pictures into prison somehow." Tap. Tap. "What about when he was at Sac County?"

Cho grins. "How'd you know? Yep, searched that too. Same deal, hole under the sink. But it was clean, no pictures."

"So… he either took them with him to Ironwood, somehow, or someone got them out for him. Probably the same someone who got them in in the first place." I'm starting to put together a scenario. "How long had the photos in the cabin been there?"

"Two sets. One lot, that's most of 'em, has been there around four years—"

"Since Wagner was shifted to Ironwood."

"—the others are new. Tech says they were developed in the last two weeks," Cho finishes, unfazed by my interruption. I'm nodding my head to myself, thinking things over, when he speaks again. "Why are you still here?"

I look up, briefly confused. "What?"

"I mean, why aren't you off on your own. When we left this morning, I was sure you'd be gone by now. But you're not, you're here. And you're talking to me."

I can't help but look at him for a long moment, thoughtful. It's true: I do need to go up to Wagner's cabin and look around there. I have the keys to the vehicle Teresa and I arrived in. Yet I waited for Cho.

"I'm…I guess, I thought T-." This jumble of thoughts is clearly uncharacteristic of me. What is wrong with me? I take a clarifying breath and start again. Still, it all somehow manages to come out in a bit of a rush. "Lisbon and I spoke. About me being better at communicating my plans to her. Schemes was her word, I believe. Anyway, I think she would want me to ask for your help here, instead of..." My sentence peters off. Cho just stares at me. I think we're both a bit shocked at what's happened here.

"Are you feeling okay?" he asks eventually. "I mean, what's happened with Lisbon aside, you've been a little…off…lately. More so than usual, I mean."

I'm even more uncomfortable now and consider deflecting, but for some reason, possibly exhaustion, I decide to confront it. "Off?"

"Yeah. You know, you've been dressing better, but you've been," I can see him searching for the right word, "distracted, preoccupied. Almost like you were before." We both know what he means by that. "And you've lost weight."

Surprise greets this last statement. I knew Cho was observant, infinitely more perceptive than his taciturn exterior often suggests, but still I'm impressed.

I've had things on my mind, sure, but now suddenly doesn't seem like the right time to discuss them. And not with Cho.

At that moment, though I notice no flash of light preceding it, an awful crack of thunder sounds directly above us, making the very windows and doors rattle. It gives me a horrible fright and I may even have flinched at the sound. What an experience that would be, to happen now, after everything, to be struck down by a bolt of jagged lightning, thrown aside in a spark of the heavens' contempt. So much for the world's indifference to man's affairs, I think to myself; that would most definitely qualify as pathetic fallacy, yes indeed. But, then again, perhaps a lightning strike might be just what is needed to rouse me into some sort of action, poor torpid creature that I have become.

The rain pours down to lash the hapless earth and almost in the same instant begins to ease. April showers, I muse to myself. What's that line again? keep on looking for a blue bird? Very well then, I shall. With the elusive blue bird in mind, I go on to think on how my life thus far has been like a little boat cast upon the wild water, and I must keep a strong grip on the tiller, holding it steady against the buffeting weather, the pounding waves, and how sometimes, such as now, I manage to lose that crucial hold, causing the sail to bellow and flap and the vessel itself to list and wallow and be turned every which way upon the ocean's swell. Such formulations please me, you have probably thus far easily gathered, as if in imagining the world in these terms I can somehow subdue it, tame it into more manageable submission. Of course I know it is a hopeless desire, but one must hope or else...

Yes, a little skiff, and I sailing it, alone, out over depthless seas.

Cho must realize I'm not going to answer him because he changes tack.

"Some good news, too."

I appreciate the new direction and acknowledge his comment with a raise of the eyebrows.

"The blood sample we took from the wall in there? It's not Lisbon's. Still waiting on DNA, but blood typing rules her out."

My heart is suddenly immeasurably lighter and I smile, a real smile, as this news sinks in. "So she did get to her gun. Or managed to wrestle one off whoever was waiting for her in there." My Teresa, of course she wasn't going to let herself be taken without a fight.

Cho nods. "What we don't know is what Wagner wants with her. We haven't heard anything from him, no ransom demand or anything."

"No," I accede. "And we probably won't. He's clearly had this weird obsession with her for a long time."

Through me. I have been thinking that Wagner's knowledge of Red John must have grown from a lot more than simply researching how to frame the murder of his colleague. The most likely scenario was that he was already obsessed with the serial killer, or with me and my hunt for him. And in following the two of us and our story, he too came to Teresa, with whom he seems to have quickly gone on to develop this unhealthy fixation. He must have known that a Red John-style murder would bring Teresa to Palm Springs, but what he had planned to do with her then was clearly foiled by…what?

On their first meeting, I could see quite clearly that he was attracted to her, but then that's nothing unusual for the job. Teresa is an attractive woman after all, despite her refusals to bolster this fact; a man would have to be incapable of all sensation were he not to notice her. And at the time I was comfortable using this attraction for my own purposes: the distraction of a beautiful woman, after all, would keep him from focusing on me and my unravelling of the puzzle. But my reading of Wagner at this stage was obviously flawed. I can see now that I mistook the obvious manifestations of guilt in his demeanor to be stemming purely from the deaths of his recent victims. Instead, he was feeling conflicted regarding his plans for Teresa, now that she was here in front of him. But, then again, I don't believe he actually had a fully-fixed strategy ready at this point. And he got scared.

Such a mixture of brilliance and ineptitude as was confoundingly present in him had me confused, I'll admit it. The Red John façade was a remarkably clever stroke. Of course he must have known I would see through it, but it was nevertheless enough of a diversion to prevent me seeing further than the cover-up. But then he choked and we came after him. I'm guessing that the real Teresa proved to be too much for the man who had, up until then, been living in deluded fantasies. There's a huge difference, after all, between the woman in the picture and the woman in reality.

"Yeah," Cho agrees, when I reach this last point. "The real one packs more of a punch."

I smile, somewhat wanly I fear. I was arrogant, I finish in my head. I thought it was all about me.

"So what was the deal with the Bowman case?" Cho asks. "It was through Wagner that we figured out who had kidnapped you."

"Yes, Lisbon filled me in afterwards." I see us again, sitting side by side on my old brown couch in the CBI bullpen, shoulders touching, joking about apples and cattle prods, her relief that I was safe profound even in the lighthearted banter. "It was awfully convenient, wasn't it, that he could point us in the right direction from the very brief detail provided in the press release. I'm guessing they had more correspondence than what he showed to us, that he gave Rachel help in dealing with me, in exchange for… I'm not sure exactly what. But she played him. Killing Lisbon was never part of the plan, but he'd clearly revealed how much she meant to me." How much she means to me.

"The boss went to his hearing and spoke on his behalf, asked for the clemency that had him transferred from death row to medium-level security in Ironwood."

"Yes, and that probably led him to seeing them as in some kind of relationship. Solidification of what he'd been fantasizing about." I turn to look out of the window, which is still open, despite the now softly falling rain. "But it was something in her shift to the FBI that prompted, or enabled his escape from prison."

It's really quite astonishing, the appearance the world takes on at dusk. I could be looking out on another planet, that pale vault of sky curved menacingly above the crouched and reaching shapes of the darkening tree-line. At moments like this I sometimes think that I could quite easily drift away, leave my perch and become one with the disappearing day, drift and dissolve as a shimmering light flickers and slowly fades to join the darkness, become nothing. The dying day seems something on the tip of the tongue, a word about to be spoken aloud, but for the moment held poised, in immanence. This sense of things waiting to occur, biding their time whilst hidden in the wings, is it just my imagination? The coming night is already colonized, it seems; they stream around me, those no longer living, desiring to speak.

I hesitate briefly before asking my next question.

"You read Agent Fischer's file when you were assigned to work in her team, am I right?"

**AN: Hope you liked it :) The next chapter hopefully won't take as long to post since we're almost on the homestretch, hooray!**


	6. Down the rabbit hole

**AN: So I must remember that when you say something's not going to take as long, it almost always will! But it's finished at last. I had a lot of fun with this chapter so I hope you enjoy it too. I haven't got around to replying to the reviews for the last chapter yet, but that is what I'm about to do now. In the meantime, a big thank you to those who commented, including the guest reviewers to whom I can't send a PM.**

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Cho and I pull up outside Wagner's cabin. It has been mostly a silent drive up along the winding forest roads; with Cho being Cho, this is not perhaps surprising, but it may also possibly have something to do with our having just confirmed that the woman to whom the cabin truly belongs, Wagner's aunt, is in actual fact Leonora Fischer. Yes, that's right, Kim Fischer's grandmother. Our piscine agent has since managed to slip through the FBI's net, and is currently nowhere to be found. But first things first. The identification of Kim as a mole within the ranks of the FBI aside, with her now also missing, we're not really any closer to finding Teresa. This is why I have insisted that Cho and I drive up here: I need to survey the scene where events were planned out, if indeed this is that place.

The cabin is single-storied, a long, low structure, set well back from and above the road, yet still relatively sheltered amidst a copse of towering pines. Access is via a meandering path of rather steep stone steps built into the slope of the hill, testament both to the age of the place and to my lapsed physical fitness as I puff my way to the summit behind Cho's more practiced stride. The agents who were guarding the cabin have gone and it stands here now somewhat isolated and lonely in this otherwise picturesque spot. Goodness knows, I'm not one for believing in haunted houses, but this place certainly looks as though it could tell some dark tales. Cho, however, is apparently unperturbed as usual and so there is no halt to our progress inside.

We step immediately into a small and dimly lit entranceway, its cool and musty atmosphere evidence of its being long unaccustomed to the rays of the sun. I pause for a moment, my eyes adjusting to the gloom, as I register the presence of a number of tall dark pieces of furniture: an oak cupboard standing upon carved and clawed feet, a branched coat rack looming out of one corner, a squat side table upon which sits an antique lamp with a coral beaded shade. There is a thin layer of dust over everything, not enough to warrant the place overly-long abandoned, instead merely a suggestion of recent neglect.

"No dusting for prints in here?" I ask Cho, curious.

"No," he affirms. "Activity was concentrated in an extension out back. Where we found the pictures. These areas were undisturbed." I purse my lips slightly and continue my examination. It certainly does seem that way, but still…

Having found nothing of much significance in here, however, I soon follow Cho through the low doorway to our left and find myself in a larger room, a sitting room of some sort, full of the same large dark lumps of furniture somberly draped in the same umber dimness. I move to the center of the room and spin slowly, trying to get a feel for the people who might live here. There are no photographs in sight, but several large paintings adorn the walls and I step forward to examine the first of these more closely.

It looks to be a late nineteenth-century depiction of the Apollo and Daphne myth, but I am not familiar with the obviously minor artist. Daphne's hair is long and dark, and atop this tangled tide sits a circlet of green leaves. She is draped in a white diaphanous garment, and on her feet are a pair of golden Greek sandals; one clad foot is lifted, presumably to show her flight, and both arms are clasped to her breast as she looks back in fear at her pursuer. Apollo is down on one knee, bare muscled arms outstretched towards his prey, a brown cloth clad about his waist and a cape of similar hue flowing from his shoulders. It's a pretty awful picture, to tell you the truth, and this judgment must show on my face for it prompts Cho to speak:

"Not a fan, huh?"

"Ugh," I say in response. "Sentimental tripe." I cast my eye around the rest of the room. "And these others aren't much better. Imagine decorating your holiday home with scenes of such trial and tribulation."

"Imagine growing up looking at this stuff," Cho responds, and I have to agree. I scan the other paintings and identify other familiar myths, equally sentimentalized: a blonde Persephone in the process of being dragged down to the Underworld by Hades; Europa, wide-eyed, on the back of the great bull, Zeus; a sleek and finely muscled Artemis, bathing her long limbs in a green pool, unaware that she is being observed by the dark-headed Actaeon. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle and my body gives an involuntary shiver.

At the same time, I find my attention drawn to the corner of the room where a floor-to-ceiling cupboard or wardrobe has been constructed, probably around the same time the house itself was built. Its wooden front is rounded and the door contains four square pieces of deep red glass set in a diamond design near the top. The handle looks to be iron and is cool to the touch as I grasp it and slowly pull the door open. The inside is empty; it smells faintly of camphor and more strongly of mildew, and I almost turn away in distaste and close the door behind me, but something makes me turn back, a sparkle of light in the darkness that is the cupboard's base. I kneel down to look closer. The glimmer is coming from a slim crack that runs right around the floor of the structure. I reach my hand down and insert a finger nail into the gap, sliding it up and down in the hope of feeling whatever it is that is down there. It fails to reach anything, but as I sit back on my heels to consider my next move I realize that the base of the cupboard is a good foot above the floor of the room.

"What have you got?" Cho has come to stand behind me.

"Do you happen to have a torch on you?" I ask, looking up at him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slim torch, which he hands to me without a word.

"Thanks." I take the small device and shine its light into the gloom. The wooden floor of the wardrobe appears smooth upon this visual inspection, and it is not until I sweep the palm of my hand slowly over its surface that I feel the slight impression in the wood near the back. I press my fingers into it more firmly and all of a sudden the whole bottom panel sinks down a foot and slides away to the right leaving a yawning hole. I cannot help a somewhat startled shout at this happening, an outburst stemming from both surprise at the hole's appearance and fright at nearly falling down it, and stumble backwards. Cho gives an amused chuckle.

I rise to my feet glaring at him, and brush the dust from my knees. Taking a step back, I make room for Cho to advance and examine my latest discovery. He kneels down where I have just been and reclaims the torch that I let fall. Having shone the light around the edges of the space, he reaches back into his pocket and withdraws an evidence bag and a pair of metallic tweezers. I wonder vaguely what else he carries in there, but am distracted when he raises up to the light, caught between the tiny pincers of the levered implement, the source of that elusive sparkle I had seen. It is an earring, a tiny diamond stud that I recognize immediately: the last time I saw it, it was nestled snugly in Teresa's equally delicate earlobe, as the woman herself leant over me, danger and adrenalin making her heart rate surge and her pupils widen as she leant in closer and touched her lips to mine. The effects of that one almost chaste kiss have lasted all that time. I feel a little like a precious ornament or vase that has been shattered and yet somehow manages to retain its shape, written on all over by tiny hairline cracks and wobbling on my tenuous base, yet nevertheless standing, a frozen statue in a cartoon that someone has just whacked with an enormous hammer. I have ruminated continually on that simple contact between us in such a condition of melancholy joyfulness and doubt, turning the memory of it in my head this way and that, examining it from every angle possible. At times I get myself so worked up about it that I doubt that it ever actually happened at all. After all, it's been a long time since I've been kissed, let alone kissed by a woman I lo… Now this one tiny piece of jewelry, this miniscule yet momentous piece of concrete evidence before me, threatens to overwhelm me.

"She was here." It comes out as a rasped whisper, and I swallow thickly. Cho deftly deposits the earring into the evidence bag and hands it to me.

"Wait here."

"Where are you going?" I'm feeling both dazed and exhilarated and part of me just wants to leap headfirst down the hole, whatever consequences such a rash act might chance to bring. Cho, however, does not appear to feel the same way and remains as calm and stoic as ever.

"Getting the tac kit from the vehicle. We're going to need a stronger torch for one thing. And who knows what we're going to find down that hole; we need to be prepared." He strides purposefully from the room.

Left alone, I begin to contemplate those moments in life when—

No, I stop myself. We shall do without the treatise on fate and the forked paths upon which destiny positions us and other such associated nonsense. There are no 'moments' in life: all we have is the continuous ongoing drift; I shouldn't have to remind myself of this. Right now I hope that there is nothing that will prevent me from following Teresa through that dark portal to whatever fortune lies beyond. No, I am compelled: I will not stop, I will not turn aside, and so I will close myself off from all other possibilities. But such moments happen, and therefore they go on to have happened. If there be other worlds, alternative universes, in which my actions play out in a different fashion (perhaps I turn and run; perhaps I left long ago), I will know nothing of them, only this. Even should I feel that light feather touch of dim premonition brush against my cheek, I will still be drawn forward irresistibly through it by the stringent force of that linked series of (un)fortunate events that began before I was even born, and that will go on to propel me without care or ceremony through whatever today will bring, just as it will drive me on to other more future happenings until at last I arrive at that final step, and must inevitably disappear forever into the instantly splintered looking-glass that has become my self. My life; what I imagine I lead but which is in actual fact leading me. Onward.

I suppose Teresa has always been associated somehow in my mind with the dream I have always had of leaving my present and finding some more fulfilling life elsewhere. Perhaps everyone has such a dream. But at the same time she _is_ my present, has been almost from the very day when I first met her, and I can't leave her, not without leaving some crucial part of myself behind. Without her I am a mere shell. I think of Roger, who helped me to realize this, sitting day after day on that depressing stool at the beachside bar on the island. What were once his hopes and dreams? What tragedy had happened to turn him into this ragged carapace of a man? But for Teresa that would have been me too, doomed to live out my life in an endless parade of past moments.

Teresa is my present but she is my future too.

I have a vision of us in one of those old silent films, in an elegantly furnished drawing room, me sitting relaxed on the opulent sofa and she, dressed in an elegant ball gown, standing with her back to me, hand on hip, but laughing at me over her shoulder. The phantom-me rises and crosses the room to spin her around, and suddenly she is in my arms and we are dancing, light and joyful, spinning wide circles about the room, not a care in the world.

I come back to myself and for a moment am happy still. Ever since I have known her, have come to place all my trust in her, I have had this belief that somehow, somewhere and one of these days, I will lay before her the whole writhing mass of my confusions, my doubts, my unsatisfied needs that daily writhe and contort themselves within me like a convulsing fetus, and there will be one simple word, and she will speak it aloud, and with that word I will be set free, my shattered life put to rights.

I am staring out the window when Cho re-enters the room.

"Catch," he says, tossing me a light grey garment. It is a bullet-proof vest, but one designed for surveillance rather than assault. "Put it on under your shirt." He has already donned his own standard FBI-issue garment, strapping it on over his own shirt. "I've radioed for back-up but it'll be awhile before they get here."

I recall as I am re-buttoning my shirt over this latest addition to my outfit that Cho has known Lisbon longer than I have, has worked closely with her for well over a decade. It is sometimes hard for me to remember this, so caught up am I in the complicated web of my own feelings. They are good friends. This must be why he is breaking with protocol and not waiting for backup. Or maybe because he knows he will have to physically restrain me if he wants me to wait with him. Either way, I'm not asking questions as he goes on to hand me a gunbelt. I merely meet his eyes and give a small nod as I take it from him. I hate guns, but in this case I'm sure I will be more than willing to use one.

"Right." He leads the way back to the wardrobe and removes a more powerful torch from his pack. Crouching down he shines it into the hole. "There look to be notches cut into the stone leading down. It's pretty deep, maybe fifteen feet, but you shouldn't break anything if you fall. I'll go first." He shoulders the pack and begins his descent, soon disappearing from my view and leaving me to stand at the top, gaping a little, some of that earlier bravado now slipping away. Nevertheless, when I hear a shout from the bottom and see the light from the torch shining up from below, illuminating the side of the hole, I too lower myself down and feel with my feet for these supposed notches. Sure enough there they are, occurring every foot or so and dug deep into the rock wall, as I move myself down, inching gingerly step by step. Then I feel Cho's firm hand on my back and my feet are once more on solid ground and I can breathe again.

We are at the start of what seems to be a tunnel, running away from us in a gentle downward direction. It must follow the slope of the hill, I think to myself, some sort of old escape route from when the house was first built. Cho has put on a head torch and looks a bit like a cave explorer. I admit to feeling a little bit of a thrill when he hands me one too. Putting it on and tightening the strap, I could almost be enjoying this adventure if it weren't for the motivation behind it. Cho meanwhile is looking at the compass on his watch.

"North-west," he states, taking his phone out of his pocket. "I'll text it in – maybe they can figure out somehow where it leads and meet us there. Not much coverage down here and it's only going to get worse, so from now on we're on our own." I try to look confident at this far from optimistic statement but suspect I may instead look somewhat ridiculous in my headlamp and suit. Cho doesn't seem to mind, however, and leads the way onward, my very own white rabbit guiding me into who knows what perilous adventures.

* * *

After what seems like days of walking, but what Cho assures me is really only a couple of hours, we come to some sort of rest-stop, a stone bench built into the side of the tunnel wall. We sit down and Cho removes a couple of bottles of water from his pack, one of which he hands to me. I gulp the liquid down thankfully and gingerly wriggle my toes within my shoes. Thankfully I am wearing my lucky socks, the ones Teresa gave me, and all this walking hasn't given me blisters. Cho is looking at the compass again.

"By my calculations we should be about under Ramona," he says. I agree, not really having any idea, and choose to show this by nodding my head, my mouth still full of water. I swallow it.

"This bench here would suggest we're halfway there, wherever there is," I say. "It would make the most sense to build this sort of thing at even intervals along the route, but let's hope it's not thirds or quarters or much worse." Just then the light from my headlamp catches something on the wall down near my foot. It's a letter, carved into the rock, an L. I trace it gently with my fingertip, feeling the subtle contrast between rough and smooth.

"Lisbon," I murmur. I can just see her sitting here, surreptitiously digging something (what? her fingernail? I can't help but wince) into the rocky surface, careful not to let her captor or captors see what she was doing. At least she wasn't unconscious when they dragged her down here, I think; or would that have been better?

Cho crouches down beside me to have a look.

"Well, we seem to be going the right way," he says, standing back up and readjusting the pack. I read this as a sign he's ready to move on. This new evidence of Teresa's also having passed this way seems to have reinvigorated me, and I lovingly trace the small letter one more time before I too am back on my feet. We continue our journey down the tunnel, Cho once more setting a steady pace.

* * *

Despite the socks, my feet are really starting to feel the pressure of our long tramp when we finally reach the tunnel's end. I almost walk right into Cho's back, so caught up am I in my thoughts that I fail to notice that he has stopped. Cho puts a finger to his lips and points upwards. I follow his gesture and the light from my headlamp shows a similar ladder of notches to the one we descended earlier. My shoulders slump: coming down was one thing but climbing up? I suddenly appreciate all those hours Teresa and Cho put in at the gym. They probably climb this sort of thing daily.

Cho takes the small torch out of his pack and switches off his headlamp, stowing the latter away. He gestures to me to do the same.

"I'll go first again," he whispers. "There's probably going to be a guard posted wherever this thing comes out. Keep quiet and I'll let you know when it's clear." I nod. I can do that, though I don't fancy being left down here alone in the darkness.

With the torch clenched firmly between his teeth, Cho begins his ascent. I try to re-muster my courage as I watch the light grow smaller. This is it, I tell myself, you're going to get her back. The light from Cho's torch goes out then, and I hold my breath. Then a larger glow appears above me; he's managed to get the trapdoor or whatever is up there open. I wait with baited breath. There is a slight scuffle and possibly a grunt before I hear Cho's urgent whisper float down in the darkness.

"Heads up."

I move back against the wall, just in time, as something dark and heavy falls through the air and lands with a thump beside me. It is a body. I swallow and look back up. The outline of Cho's head appears and I hear him once more call down to me softly.

"All clear. Come on up, quiet as you can."

I edge gingerly around the corpse on the ground and struggle my way upwards, every muscle in my body straining as I cling desperately to each one of those notches. My jaw is clenched, teeth gritted firmly together, by the time I finally attain the top and Cho reaches down to help me over the edge. I collapse onto the floor and it is several minutes before I can open my eyes and take in my surroundings. We are in another sitting room, this one much larger and grander than the one in the cabin. The wardrobe, from which I have just stumbled, however, is identical to that which we entered, down to the four pieces of red glass, and the whole room is heavy with a similar air of neglect and decay. Curiously, the walls are papered in a rich red color but are otherwise bare.

Cho has crossed to the closed door and once I have managed to regain a fair modicum of my breath I stand up to join him. He eases the door open and motions for me to follow. We tiptoe down a long dim hallway, treading carefully to avoid squeaky floorboards, and I once again feel that thrill of excitement course through me, tempered of course by utter terror. We are just passing a large ornate silver mirror looking down on us imposingly from its position on the wall when a faint sound reaches us from a doorway to the right. It sounds like some sort of singing, a male voice, low but distinctly cheerful. Cho reaches behind him and draws his gun. I do the same but stand back from the door as I see him readying himself to bust it down. The weight of everything that has happened so far today threatens to bust down on me too but I fight it back. I nod to show him I'm ready and at the same time happen to glance at my reflection in the mirror as I do so. I'm white as a sheet.

Then everything happens at once. There's an almighty bang as the power of Cho's kick meets the door and it crashes inward. Someone inside gives a startled shout as Cho leaps over the fallen door and into the room, and then there's a gunshot, followed by two more in quick succession. Now I'm in the room too and before me is a tangled scene. From the corner of my eye I can see Cho checking the body of a man on the floor, rolling him over and kicking away a weapon, and there's another body not too far from me, but by far the main portion of my attention is on the woman standing before the window, her familiar face turned towards mine. I see her with the precision and immediacy of nightmare, and everything else fades to form a blurred backdrop. Without thinking any further I rush towards her and gather her small body into my arms, hugging her fiercely and burying my face in her hair.

It is a few minutes before I realize that she isn't hugging me back. I take a step backwards and look down at her. She is gazing back at me but with a remote stare, her eyes strangely blank and the features of her face unmoving. My hands on her shoulders, I give her a slight shake.

"Teresa? Teresa? Lisbon?" I shake her again, trying to wake us both up from what must surely be a ghastly dream. But there's no response; she continues to gaze at me with that dull and almost frowning air, her body somehow limp in my grasp. I turn a horrified face towards Cho, unable to speak but the question clear as day in my expression.

_What has he done to her?_

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**AN: Hope you liked it! Let me know in a review :)**


	7. Under your skin

**AN: So we're almost there! I'm thinking one more chapter, but as this story was originally planned for five chapters I could be wrong. This one's a bit shorter, but hopefully you still enjoy it. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter :)**

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_What has he done to her?_

There is an awful moment of stillness around me, hanging heavy upon my shoulders, a dreaded mantle, the weight of which almost causes me to buckle before it just as suddenly eases, as if everything everywhere had come to a sudden and grinding halt and then slowly, painfully, and with great effort starts up again. A groan from behind me draws my fogged awareness back to my surroundings and I turn, Teresa still in my arms, to see Linus Wagner dragging himself up to a seated position, slumping his body against the chair upon which he had been sitting when Cho burst into the room. He is clutching his shoulder and through his straining fingers I can see a glimpse of glistening red. His face is ashen, even more so than usual, and his eyes are shadowed wells of darkness against his pale skin. Cho strides to him hurriedly from where he had been checking the corpse of the guard across the room, and collects a small handgun from where it had fallen at Wagner's side. I am once again grateful to have him with me to remember such practicalities.

In this same unfolding of newfound awareness, I now also notice that Wagner had been sitting at work before an easel when we entered so abruptly to interrupt him. There is a scatter of paints and brushes strewn across the wooden floor, but the easel and the painting resting on it remain upright. The painting itself depicts a familiar though unfinished scene. It takes me a moment to recognize it, one which I had seen and abhorred just hours before: Daphne fleeing Apollo and in the beginning stages of her transformation into a tree. But Daphne's face has become…

Cold beetle-feet of trepidation scurry down my body as I turn back to the woman in my arms. For the first time I notice that Teresa is draped in swathes of white gauze as if to emulate the nymph in the original work, the shadow lines of her lithe figure very much visible through the layers and evoking an immediate response from my traitorous body which I immediately seek to quell. Her hair is loose and flowing and upon this dark and lovely head is some ridiculous crown of leaves. A wave of revulsion runs through me as I finally comprehend that Wagner has abducted Teresa to use her as some kind of doll in his sick fantasies. Revulsion is quickly superseded by rage as I release her and prepare to throw myself at this puny little man and proceed to throttle him violently.

Cho steps between us.

"As much as I agree with you, Jane, I can't let you do it," he says, his voice a beacon of calm forcing its way through my blustering ire and securing it fast. Wagner looks like he wants to interrupt him but Cho silences him too with a gesture. "He's not going anywhere and he's in a helluva lot of pain. That's got to be enough for now."

He maintains eye contact with me until he sees my body relax somewhat. "I'm calling this in," he then continues. "You try to do something there." He gestures to Teresa who has remained standing behind me, a still figure of tragic contradiction: somehow divine in her state of apathy, at once strong and vulnerable, athletic and lethargic, poised and listless. I look for something to cover her in, I know she would hate to be seen like this, but have to settle for carefully removing the absurd headpiece before violently tossing it aside, and removing my own suit jacket to place over her bare shoulders. Taking her hand in mine, I draw her gently over to a chaise-longue upholstered in a bright red fabric. She follows me willingly enough and takes a seat beside me, yet her movements slow and languorous.

I can hear Cho giving orders to someone over the phone, requesting backup and an ambulance, along with Wagner's occasional pain-filled groans, these latter building to an anguished crescendo as Cho presumably applies pressure to his wound, but I push these sounds to the back of my mind as I begin my examination. Placing the tips of my fingers beneath her chin, I raise Teresa's face to more fully meet mine and notice the frequent flutter of her delicate eyelids, dark lashes performing their fleeting dance upon her cheek before rising once more to reveal large dark orbs. I feel gently for the pulse point in her neck and register it slow and languid, a pace matched by the outward wisps of her breath, the somehow still sweet scent of which fills my nostrils.

Yes, definitely hypnosis, but there's something else here too. I run my hands and eyes down her bare arms, marveling at the silky smoothness and patina of freckles alike. In the translucent blue-veined skin of each inner elbow, however, I trace the angry red welts and accompanying bruising of numerous needle marks marring the otherwise pale surface, some several days old and others more recent. My heart stills and I feel suddenly incapable of breathing properly.

I'm not sure how long I sit there, holding those arms, their weight so heartbreakingly small and light in the palms of my hands, my head bowed, and struggling to get air into my panicked lungs. She doesn't seem to mind this stillness on my part. She sits beside me, relaxed and calm; this complete lack of tension terrifies me even more. I don't know if I've ever seen Teresa fully relaxed, completely free of any sense of volition. She has always been such an active forceful presence in my life, all fierce determined motion; never still, never…placid. This awful torpor is more disturbing to me than any physical wound, but still…

I can't do anything about whatever drugs he's pumped her full of, but the state of mesmerism I can fix, I'm sure. Wagner doesn't come across as a skilled hypnotist by any means, I think to myself, as I glare across the room at his occasionally convulsing form. I turn back to Teresa and move my arms up to her shoulders, under the jacket, tapping my fingers gently. As I suspected, he's done a shonky job and I can immediately observe the subtle shift in her gaze when I hit the right spot. At the same time I run through potential phrases in my head. Not surprisingly perhaps it is "Artemis" that releases the inexpert grasp keeping her mind held captive, and I find myself breathing more easily as she moves an inch or two back from me, her body gaining some small sense of precision as the beginnings of a question rise up from the depths of her eyes and reach out towards mine; but it's not enough and I remain staring at her helplessly, unable to rescue that drowning self so dear and familiar to me that I see attempting to surface in her gaze.

Then a small miracle happens.

"Jane?"

It is one word, and such a small tentative one at that, rasped out in a strange half-whisper that catches at my soul, but it is _something_. It brings Cho over to stand near us, furthermore, and Wagner's handcuffed figure stills in my peripheral vision.

"Teresa," I breathe out. "Lisbon. I'm here." My hands move down her cheeks, sweeping her tangled hair back and over her shoulders. She looks like she's about to say something more but again there comes that inner struggle and her gaze drops from mine with a sense of unwilling surrender. "It's okay," I say and draw her into a hug. It's enough for the moment that I know she's still in there somewhere.

Just then there comes a disquieting sound from the doorway, a low rumbling growl that carries on for an inordinate amount of time. As I pull back from Teresa, I see Cho's entire posture stiffen in my peripheral vision. I look over to the doorway.

And freeze.

There, standing stiff-legged atop the broken-in door is a massive dog. Big and black and apparently very very angry.

"Wagner," says Cho slowly. "Wagner, call him off. Now." But Wagner merely smiles at us, a nasty leer which stretches his already unpleasant visage with its broad bony forehead and unusually high cheekbones. The room is still then, a frozen tableau, as we all watch the dog from our respective positions. It continues its unceasing growl, muzzle scrunching up, its yellowy-white and unpleasantly sharp teeth bared and glistening. A long thread of saliva drops from its jaw and hangs precipitately for a few moments before collecting to pool on the floor.

I hear myself swallow.

Then, its muscles bunched and stiff, the hackles on the back of its neck raised and threatening, the animal begins its slow, measured stalk towards us. I find myself unable to move, but watch Cho reach behind him for his weapon and draw it slowly. Normally I would term myself an animal lover, but right now I am failing to muster anything that could even faintly be termed love towards the creature now only a few meters from where I sit.

Just as the animal crouches to spring and Cho readies his gun to fire, that small voice from beside me speaks again.

"Theron," Teresa says, her voice gentle and containing not even the slightest hint of fear. Instead there is a surprisingly fond quality to it. The dog ceases its growling and its hackles begin to subside.

"Theron," Wagner says more sharply, his voice, I am pleased to note, laced with pain. "Theron, attack." The animal looks to him and back to Teresa. She makes a soothing noise deep in her throat and slips from the sofa to kneel on the floor, one hand held out. The dog whines in response, and lowers its head. Keeping a wary eye on Cho, whose stance remains fully alert, it sidles closer until it's right beside us. I admit that I too am far from relaxed at this point, but neither Teresa nor Theron seem to care, as the formerly fearsome beast lowers himself to rest its head in her lap. She strokes its velvety head soothingly and continues to make that low crooning noise.

So typical, I think to myself, that Teresa Lisbon, even in a drug-addled, partly hypnotized state of being, still managed to somehow charm her way into the affections of the most vicious of canines.

Wagner is now scowling but seems to have accepted the failure of this last-ditch attempt to rid himself of us, probably regretting ever introducing his guard dog to his prisoner, and Cho is wiping his hand across his forehead in relief whilst replacing his weapon in his holster. Teresa has her arms around the dog's thick neck, her face buried in its fur, and is singing to it softly, while its cropped tail beats a steady rhythm on the wooden floor. As for me, I am caught somewhere between some form of abject terror and an exhausted ease. For a moment I see the five of us captured visually in time, a ludicrous family portrait hung grandly on some palatial mansion's wall.

Then somewhere below us I hear the wail of sirens and the crunch of tires on gravel, and for the first time in a long long while I can almost see an end to this nightmare. My eyes fall on the back of Teresa's head, bent as it is over the animal in her arms. I reach down and finger a few locks of her thick dark hair.

Physically she's here, I ruminate still somewhat anxiously. If only something can be done to bring the rest of her back to me.

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**AN: Hope you liked it! Do let me know in a review :)**


	8. Wedded strangers

**AN: So so sorry for the hold-up on this, the final chapter! We've had visitors so I haven't been able to snatch any writing time. But here it is at long last, so I hope you enjoy it. And thanks again to those who have been reading along and reviewing my little story. I'm a bit sad it's come to an end :)**

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How odd it is, the way that some event or happening can all of a sudden turn what was once familiar into something new and strange.

"Yes, yes," I hear myself say majestically, as I enter the hospital corridor where they are all standing, gathered together, a somber collection of beings poised to place judgment down upon me; at the same time, I hold up a hand to silence them all, "but I am here to take Lisbon home."

Doctor, nurse, Abbott, and Pike all stare at me, incredulous, open-mouthed. No one says a word in the moment of quiet that follows my grand statement. I think I have surprised even myself with the strength of my certainty: the force of it stops me quite in my tracks and I may be swaying a little where I stand.

"Alright," Abbot eventually says in a calm voice, as though he is dealing with an unstable suspect or escaped lunatic, "there's no need to talk to us like that, Jane."

Like what? It takes me a minute to realize that I must have been shouting at them but I don't want to apologize for this behavior. I just want them all to leave so that I can be alone with Teresa, just the two of us. It's been far too long. I look through the glass separating us at her prone figure: small, white, and vulnerable, the white hospital bedding giving the distinct impression of wrapping her body in a shroud.

My head feels like it is expanding, becoming an oversized balloon gradually filling with helium, tugging at the muscles in my neck and threatening to float away. My feet are all of a sudden very small and distant and I have the impulsive urge to reach down and cling to them, bring the sharpness of my knees into the pit of my stomach and squeeze with all my might. I want to laugh and cry and curl myself up into a tight ball, keeping all these increasingly disparate parts of myself together.

There is a hand on my arm and I wonder where it comes from. Its solid presence brings me back to myself, however, and to the present to find a circle of concerned faces ringed around me. Not one is the face I want to see.

The hand belongs to Pike, I manage to register, and he grips me more firmly with his lean strong fingers, guiding me to a row of plastic chairs and pushing me down into one.

"When was the last time you slept, Jane?"

I stare at him blankly. What the hell does that have to do with anything, I think, wondering why they are all looking at me like this. I am not what is wrong here, I want to scream, what is wrong is that you can't figure out a way to fix her and you want to keep her in this awful place indefinitely.

I must be staring blankly at him because Pike looks up at the doctor and at Abbott: "Is there something we can give him, too?" he asks. "Shut him down for a while. He's going to do damage in this state."

I understand even in my current condition that Pike is ultimately a kind and caring man. What he says comes from a place of concern for my wellbeing, I know that, I know that, I know that, but it doesn't stop me from pulling away from his grasp. His words, his request, that calm deep tone, put me back within those four white walls, white floor, white ceiling, everything white, white all around me until it is too late: I too am dissolved in white, broken into a thousand bleached splinters, and there is nothing left. Nothing at all.

* * *

The world when I step back into it is vast, and scooped out somehow. I wake to a sense of myself rattling around helplessly like a shriveled pea left behind in an empty bowl, a lone ball-bearing in one of those spring-loaded parlor games, slammed from station to station, utterly reliant on angles and forces, until at last managing to slip past the levers and rattle home to rest in the dark.

Then I remember and open my eyes. At first I am back where I left off, staring at a blank white ceiling, but once my eyes move and I manage to turn my head to the side, I start to recognize the vague shapes around me, and a resigned relief settles on me like a blanket. A sticker on the steadily beeping machine beside my bed reads Mercy Memorial: a hospital, yes, but the one in which Teresa too is captive.

Lugubrious rain-light is slithering down the window glass; it must be late afternoon sometime. I wonder vaguely what day it is, how long I have been out, as my eyes follow the progress of one solemn droplet, then another, making their intrepid way down the pane.

A shifting creaking sound beside me brings my head around on the pillow. A man is sitting in the chair beside my bed: Pike. As my eyes meet his, his whole body leans forward, elbows coming to rest on knees, chin in hands. He looks the way I have been feeling, as though a massive but invisible weight is stretched across his shoulders, pressing him down.

"Hey, Jane," he says somewhat wearily. "Welcome back."

"Thanks," I reply. "It's good to be back, I think." My own voice sounds alien to me, a hollow echo emerging from this shattered shell that has become my body. Perhaps Pike thinks so too, for my statement is followed by a silence so long I almost drift back to sleep. Then he moves again, speaks.

"She's just the same. No change." I wonder why he is here with me rather than keeping vigil at her bedside. It's where I would be if I could move or even feel the lower half of my body. I attempt to wriggle my toes, surreptitiously watching the corresponding bump in the blanket where I estimate their position. No movement. "The doctors aren't sure if she's ever going to come out of it."

I see again those green eyes, their familiar depth and warmth replaced by that awful vague absence. It can't be.

"I don't know if she told you…before…I got a job offer in DC." Pike pauses again, clearly expectant of my saying something in reply.

I oblige.

"No, she didn't." So maybe that was it, the reason why she held me at arm's length those last few days before everything collapsed in on itself. I try to force my sluggish brain to process this new information, replaying our every interaction, analyzing each look, every avoidance of touch. It's hard going. Especially since Pike seems insistent on talking through the already unsteady train of my thoughts.

"Well, I…I asked Teresa to come with me." I wait with baited breath. "She hadn't given me a reply yet. And now…"

"And now," I repeat after him, filling the gap, "you have a decision to make." The feeling is starting to return to my lower extremities and I test out these revived tingling sensations creeping down my calves. The bumps in the hospital blanket rise and fall, rise and fall.

Pike adjusts his position in his chair, leaning back and stretching his arms up and behind his back. Then he stands and begins to pace the length of the room. His anxious energy is infectious and I bring myself into a seated position in the bed, adjusting the pillows to sit more firmly behind my back. He stops pacing and turns to look at me, fingers gripping the rail at the end of the bed.

"I have to go. I have to take this. It's what I've been working towards my entire career." The words come out in a rapid torrent.

"She would understand," I say, wanting to share something, help him somehow, knowing at the same time that what I'm saying is true. This time it's me who is the sane, sensible one. I wonder if it's something to do with my lying down, in state as it were. I feel a bit like an oracle. "Lisbon would understand how important this move is to you."

"It's just…what we had…I thought we really mighta had something." It's almost a question, and he raises his eyebrows and looks at me desperately, almost as though he wants me to confirm this, change his mind somehow, rant about star-crossed lovers and convince him to stay.

I don't say a word.

"But, like this, she doesn't know me. She doesn't know any of us, recognize any of us. Except you." This last is spoken in a not quite accusatory tone.

I continue to wait in silence.

"Cho says she said your name, at the house before help arrived and then again in the ambulance on the way to the hospital."

I close my eyes, remembering once more that small thin voice reaching out for me, just as her hand gripped mine, paramedics moving around us quick and calm. It wasn't a frightened voice, wherever she was in her mind she wasn't afraid, but there wasn't any of the strength in it to which I have long become accustomed.

"I broke the hypnosis," I say at last, opening my eyes and looking right at him. "That's why she knows me, on some level." The expression in his eyes subtly shifts, becomes mournful. "But whatever drugs were used, there's obviously some kind of block there, some damage. She knew me, recognized me, but that was it."

Acknowledging this brings the return of weariness and I sink back once more into my pillows exhausted. Pike, too, looks drained; he hangs his head, the knuckles on his hands white where they grip the bed. We remain like this, tragic heroes on the eve of surrender, for some time, before he pushes back on his hands, gives me a nod, and without a word leaves the room.

I lie for a long time thinking of nothing at all. I can do that, make my mind go completely blank, not a thought, not even a glimmer of suggestion. It is a skill I acquired back when even the barest inkling of what was to be endured in those waking hours before night and forgetfulness came upon me again was almost more than I could bear. And so, with my mind an empty canvas, weightless as a single leaf carried forth upon the tide, I float out and away, far, far into the distance, to the very edge, the rim, where a curve of water shimmers with molten color against a molten sky, and everything around me lifts and merges invisibly into one.

This place at the edge of things is where I am at my most comfortable now; in the far pale margins of existence. If I can use that word, comfort. If I can even call it being.

* * *

I will say this for sorrow and misery, that they lend things a solemn weight and cast everything in a starker and more illuminating light than that in which they could ever have been known hitherto. Suffering expands the spirit, strips off any protective layering and leaves the inward self rawly exposed to the elements, ones nerves all bared and tingling in the breeze like the broken strings of an ancient violin.

I open the door to my new house and usher my guests inside. Cho carries two large blue suitcases with ease and sets them down just inside the door. Grace follows him, a smaller bag in one hand and the other on the shoulder of Teresa, whom she is guiding in front of her. They too stop just inside the hall, and Grace at least looks around her with interest. Teresa's eyes remain glazed and her small body sways on the spot where she stands, as if moving to a distant rhythm only she can hear.

"Well," I say, spreading my hands in a gesture of welcome, "come upstairs and I'll show you the rooms, and then we can have a cup of tea." Teresa mimics my gesture, opening her arms wide, but her face remains blank. The others smile somewhat uncomfortably. I can't help reaching for her hand and holding it in mine as I turn towards the staircase.

"Lovely house, Jane," Grace comments as she follows us up the stairs, one hand trailing along the glossy surface of the banister. "And this is such a nice thing you're doing. You can tell she's comfortable with you."

I look down at the brunette woman walking beside me, her hand still in mine, her eyes concentrated on her own feet as she mounts each step. "Never a question, Grace. I'm just glad I could convince the authorities it was the best plan."

I turn my head briefly and grin at her. She smiles back broadly and Cho chuckles from behind. "Yeah, that word 'convince' carries with it all manner of sins," he states.

I give Teresa's hand a gentle squeeze, my heart lightening with this renewed surety of friendship. And even though she doesn't squeeze back the feeling doesn't go away. I would never have thought, all those years ago, that these people with whom I knew I had to work if I was to catch Red John, would become so dear to me; and, furthermore, that they would come to care so for me in return.

At the top of the stairs is a broad airy landing. I cross it and open the first door on the left, leading Teresa into the room I have chosen for her. This very room was what decided me when it came to choosing the house: quite simply, it made me think of her. The space is large and square, with the far end tapering into a broad bay window with a comfortable window seat covered with plush green cushions. The full-length curtains are also green, a rich deep color which gives the room a cozy feel despite its size. Small pieces of furniture and other knickknacks have been brought from Teresa's own house to furnish it in the hope of making her more comfortable.

Teresa releases my hand and walks slowly across the room to the window seat. Her fingers trail lazily across the soft fabrics of the cushions as she takes a seat and curls up there, eyes drawn to the world outside the window. She looks completely comfortable in this position and I can't help but admire the way her surroundings somehow make her hair appear even richer and darker, and her eyes gleam.

"Oh Jane, this is gorgeous!" Grace exclaims, following us into the room and spinning around slowly on the Persian rug that covers the floor. "Absolutely perfect." She makes her way over to explore the small ensuite bathroom and I can hear her opening cupboards and drawers in there. Cho, meanwhile, has deposited the suitcases down by the built-in closet, and is now sitting beside Teresa.

"Well, boss, what do you think?" he asks her gently, placing a hand on her arm, and she turns her head to smile at him, but remains silent. He looks back at me. "I think she likes it."

I agree, and that little niggle of doubt in the pit of my stomach is soothed by the thought. This is going to work. And with time, I am sure, she will come back to me.

* * *

_Three months later._

Grace has returned to San Francisco, to Rigsby and their family, and it is now just me and Teresa in the house. Cho visits when he can, however, and even Abbot, Wylie, and other members of our new team make an effort to stop by. Teresa's brothers have been to visit, but didn't stay long, awkward and uncomfortable with the change that has descended upon their sister. In the meantime, I continue to consult on cases for the FBI, working from home where I can be with Teresa.

There are moments when I catch her studying me with that remote fascination she has developed, as if I were an unusual rock or a piece of wood or some deep reflective pool of water. Quite possibly she finds me just as perplexing a spectacle as I find her, my beautiful songless Syrinx. She wanders about the house and I am almost surprised anew every time I meet her; I have become a scientist of a sort, lucky enough to have before me the last of a delicate and elusive species considered to be long extinct. I am putting her together, piece by piece, slowly and with great care: I am fascinated by her bare foot, for example, with its littlest toe and its propensity to curl neatly beside its neighbor, like an infant's tiny thumb; her soft little hands, the way they cling to each other as she walks as if she seeks to find comfort in the familiar embrace of her own skin; the vulnerability of the backs of her knees, pale and translucent, framed by the hem of her summer skirts. She has the habit of touching things as she passes by them, lightly tapping with the very tips of her fingers, feeling them out as a child will acknowledge the markers of some secret game known only to them. She will touch me too, as I am sitting, reading, in the kitchen or the living room, entering softly and passing me by, fingertips trailing over my shoulder, my hair, my hands. I do not know if she is recognizing me or if I am just one of any number of stopping places on her path of wandering.

When she takes the time to sit beside me, as is most likely to happen in the late evening with the sun moving to sink beneath the horizon, I talk to her about our life. She listens, wide-eyed, occasionally giving a faint nod; absorbing it all or thinking of something completely different, I cannot tell. I could be simply talking to myself at these precious moments, telling myself the same old story, but nevertheless I treasure the time spent with her.

How can the past be past and yet, at the same time, be right here with me, unblemished, shining, bright as polished gold.

Now it is midnight and I am standing outside her bedroom door. I am not sure why, but there is some prickle of unease or anticipation tiptoeing through me. When at last I manage to bring myself to knock it is with the barest brush of my knuckles against the wood. There is no sound from within and I almost turn away. Is she sleeping? I open the door a fraction and wait again, listening for the sounds of her breathing, and then step in to the room, leaving the door open behind me where it admits a stream of muted light into the dim confines of the chamber. The curtains are not drawn and outside I can make out the outlines of the trees and the shadow of the neighbor's roof. Everything in the room is ordered and tidy. Even as she is now, Teresa is a stickler for organization and neatness.

She lies atop the bedcovers, on her side and facing me, one hand under her cheek and her pajama-ed knees drawn up. I can't help but notice how light a depression her body makes in the bedding, so little of her there is. She is watching me from where she lies, those deep green wells that are her eyes turned up to me, larger and wider than ever. She doesn't appear in any way alarmed or frightened by my appearing in the room in front of her. Without raising her head, she extends her hand toward me. I move towards her and clamber on to the bed at her side, still fully dressed, shoes and all, and lie down, my face to hers, our knees touching.

"Hold onto me," she whispers, and my heart leaps upon hearing these first real words from her in what feels like forever, "I feel as if I'm falling, falling all the time."

I move closer and put my arm over her, letting it come to rest on the curve of her waist. The other I slip beneath her head and she shuffles herself forward to rest on the crook of my shoulder. Her breath is cool on my face and the green of her eyes is almost all that I can see now. I feel the rise and fall of her ribs against my wrist and the beating of her heart close to mine.

So we remain for some time, here on the bed, and I feel curiously as though I am gazing into a mirror. Her hand is pressed lightly on my arm, a tentative bird's claw, and all of a sudden she begins talking to me about her family, her father, how good and kind and cheerful he had been, before her mother died and everything went wrong; how he would sing her to sleep when she was a little girl. While most of this I have known, guessed, from observing her so closely all these years, yet still it is a small miracle, lying here in the dark with Teresa warm and real and becoming herself once more in my arms.

I listen to her soft voice sharing with me these treasured secrets from her past, and as I feel her body relax into my embrace and her words become blurred with drowsiness as she descends into sleep, I think to myself:

This is it; this is real.

* * *

**AN: The end :)**


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